Mustard on Lamb?

The liturgy having passed through us
Once more, we scurried, smiling
Through the tended graveyard
With the organ raging in full retreat
To the silence of a Zephyr Six
And home to remove our polished shoes

Every third week
Sunday roast turned to beef
To remove the sickly nothing
Of communion wafers
And I, with a dollup of tap water,
Twiddled Colman’s Mustard powder
Into a perfect paste

If done, if repeated, if attempted
For pork or lamb the following week
My mother’d recoil in horror:
‘Mustard on lamb!’ Then,
‘You heard your mother, John
No mustard. Period!’

This house with its maze
Of mustard-like rules
A puzzle too perplexing
Too burdensome
Like an empire tottering,
Its final stumbling steps
Crumbling under a heavy load:
An indecipherable conformity

This house was my liturgy
My home, my rhythm of days
Of coal fires, ice on windows
The radio in the background,
Crosswords and pipe smoke
Dress patterns and pins
A piano barely played
The sweet smell of Airfix glue
And another Spitfire
To fly me far away.